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Housing tips from student to student

Finding a place to live can be difficult. Lisa has some great tips.

"In retrospective, I thought about a few things that might be helpful to others":

Double-check §7 and don't agree to give back the apartment refurbished,when it was not brand new when moving in; This is very important, because otherwise you have to renovate everything, from ceiling to the floor and this is very expensive!

Always make a protocol when moving in (ideally with pictures and detailed analysis of what is already damaged) and also when moving out (everything was fine, no harm done), because otherwise you might never see your deposit again!

If you are subrenting, make sure the person you are renting from is allowed to subrent, otherwise both of you can get kicked out!

Ask if CPR registration is possible, you need CPR for everything so it is bad to not have it

Ask for the name of the bank account you are sending your money to! First, you need that for online-transfer, second, you might want to know who has got your money in case of conflict.

"In my experience, and I hear that a lot, the most efficient way to find a room quickly if you are still abroad and cannot go any place to have a look by yourself – is to join every single housing group on Facebook you can find and keep your eyes open! There are lots of offerings from mostly international people who are used to do all the things over Skype and don’t have a problem with that. People can have a look at your profile, maybe you even have mutual friends, which is always helpful. Often there are groups for specific regions like "Germans in Copenhagen" or "Italians in Copenhagen" where you can connect better because they speak the same language and there is more trust. There is also a lot of scam, be careful."

Another website for student housing is http://www.kab-bolig.dk/, however you need to pay 400dkk once in order to put yourself on the waiting list

"In my experience, Findroommate sadly is not working for international students. It is good in finding other internationals who are also looking, you can group with to organise a joined apartment. But it does not work for finding a room because there are mostly Danes looking for other Danes. I wrote about 50 very polite messages and received 2 replies, both telling me (in danish!) that they already have someone. So don’t spend your money and time on that if you are not Danish or cannot communicate in it."

When contacting people, try to offer some information about yourself. If you stick with "Hi I am looking for a room, xxx Lisa" you probably wont receive many replies. People don’t have time, they need to know if you are a future roommate-candidate or not, so give them some detail:-> Age and origin -> Future occupation (studying? working?) -> If you have experience in sharing apartments, tell them that! -> Morning or evening-person (this is helpful for both of you!)-> Smoker or non-smoker -> Any weird hobbies? Or just normal yoga-cooking-tv-series-stuff?-> Will your boy/girlfriend be there a lot? Then you should mention that at some point. -> give them a link to your Xing or Linked or website if you have one; also provide a Skype name orother means of communication; offer them to add you on Facebook (you can put them on restricted anyway but it’s good for the feeling).

Don’t tell them very private stuff, of course. Stay high-level but let them know who you are at least a little bit.